ABSTRACT
The Irish Traveller community are identified ‘as an ethnic minority people with a shared history, language, culture and traditions including, historically, a nomadic way of life and value system on the island of Ireland’ and who are recorded in Irish history since the twelfth century. Since 2017, Travellers are recognised by the Irish government as a distinct ethnic group. Historically however, Irish Traveller existence as ‘dangerous class’ within Irish society has been fraught with a multiplicity of socio-economic disadvantage, public discriminatory attitudes and hostility. Their limited interaction with settled people and inner community boundaries contributed to public prejudice of the ‘itinerant way of life’ and the labelling of Travellers as criminals. Since the 1950s, strict assimilation policies by the Irish government has contributed to fragmentation and erosion of Traveller cultural identity, values, norms and traditions over time. Whilst Travellers are increasingly entrepreneurial and able to navigate ‘dangerous spaces’ in the context of crime, they remain ill-equipped to deal with the harms caused by drug-related criminal activity and drug abuse, often confounded by their life and social circumstances. This contributes to the renewed framing of the Traveller community as ‘dangerous class’ operating within contemporary criminal environments as ‘dangerous spaces’.
